Fibrous batts (sometimes referred to as battings) have been made from synthetic staple fibers, particularly from polyester fiberfill, and have been disclosed, for example, in Moler, U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,227, Willis, U.S. Pat. No. 3,290,704, Tolliver, U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,137, Scott U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,675, Street, U.S. Pat. Nos 4,668,562 and 4,753,693, and Burnett WO 88/00258 and other art referred to herein. A preferred synthetic polymer for many purposes has been polyester homopolymer, i.e. poly(ethylene terephthalate), sometimes referred to as 2G-T, and various batts of such polymer fiber have been made and used for many years as filling materials. As indicated in some of the references, for many purposes it has been found desirable to make such batts from blends of filling fiber with lower melting binder fibers that soften at temperatures appropriate for making a bonded batt, preferably sheath/core binder fibers that have a higher melting core, such as 2G-T, surrounded by a sheath of binder material, so that, upon activation of the binder material, which has usually been achieved by heating to a temperature below the melting or softening point of the core and of the filling fiber, but above the binding temperature of the binder material, the latter bonds the filling fiber and provides tie points, connected by the remaining cores of the original binder fibers.
For some uses, especially in some apparel, it has been desired to provide batts with "stretchable" characteristics, by which is meant the ability to recover from extensions such as are encountered in normal usage, and to be able to control the amount of stretch in different directions (as mentioned more hereafter). Some batts have been produced with limited extensions that have been approximately equal directionally, i.e. are not controlled as to direction of stretch; I believe such batts have been made by air-laying, e.g. on a RANDO/DOA system, or some such system of randomly laying the fibers to form the batt. Other batts with limited stretch capability have been produced from carded webs with essentially unidirectional stretch in the machine direction (MD), i.e. with no significant stretch in the cross direction (XD). Such prior batts have not fulfilled the need that has existed for such uses in apparel, such as gloves, and stretch pants, for example.